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This book offers a diverse and groundbreaking account of the intersections between modernities and environments in the circumpolar global North, foregrounding the Arctic as a critical space of modernity, where the past, present, and future of the planet's environmental and political systems are projected and imagined. Investigating the Arctic region as a privileged site of modernity, this book articulates the globally significant, but often overlooked, junctures between environmentalism and sustainability, indigenous epistemologies and scientific rhetoric, and decolonization strategies and governmentality. With international expertise made easily accessible, readers can observe and understand the rise and conflicted status of Arctic modernities, from the nineteenth century polar explorer era to the present day of anthropogenic climate change.
List of contents
Introduction: Arctic Environmental Modernities from the Age of Exploration to the Era of the Anthropocene by Lill-Ann Körber, Scott MacKenzie, and Anna Westerståhl Stenport.- 1. The Disappearing Arctic?: Scientific Narrative, Environmental Crisis, and the Ghosts of Colonial History by Andrew Stuhl.- 2. Petro-Images of the Arctic and Statoil's Visual Imaginary by Synnøve Marie Vik.- 3. Urbanity Without Cities: Arctic Modernization in Northern Scandinavia by Torill Nyseth.- 4. Cod Society: The Technopolitics of Modern Greenland and the Creation of an Arctic Welfare State by Kristian Hvitfeldt Nielsen.- 5. Space and Literary History in Arctic Norway: Knut Hamsun in Lule Sámi Nordlándda by Kikki Jernsletten and Troy Storfjell.- 6. The Polar Hero's Progress: Fridtjof Nansen, Spirituality, and Environmental History by Mark Safstrom.- 7. Heritage, Conservation, and the Geopolitics of Svalbard by Dag Avango and Peder Roberts.- 8. Toxic Blubber and Seal Skin Bikinis, Or: How Green is Greenland?Ecology in Contemporary Film and Art by Lill-Ann Körber.- 9. The Negative Space in the National Imagination: Russia and the Arctic by Lilya Kaganovsky.- 10. Invisible Landscapes: Extreme Oil and the Arctic in Experimental Film and Activist Art Practices by Lisa E. Bloom.- 11. Icelandic Futures: Arctic Dreams and Geographies of Crisis by Anne-Sofie Nielsen Gremaud.- 12. Feminist and Environmentalist Public Governance in the Arctic by Eva-Maria Svensson.- 13.The Greenlandic Reconciliation Commission: Ethnonationalism, Arctic Resources, and Post-Colonial Identity by Kirsten Thisted.- 14. Arctic Futures and Global Assessment Policy by Nina Wormbs and Sverker Sörlin.
About the author
Lill-Ann Körber is Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Oslo, Norway, and Associate Professor II of Modern Scandinavian Literature at the University of Bergen, Norway. Her publications include the co-edited The Postcolonial North Atlantic: Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands (2014).
Scott MacKenzie teaches in the Department of Film and Media, Queen’s University, Canada. His many books include Films on Ice: Cinemas of the Arctic (co-ed., 2015) and Film Manifestos and Global Cinema Cultures (ed. 2014).
Anna Westerståhl Stenport is Professor and Chair of the School of Modern Languages at Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. She co-edited Films on Ice: Cinemas of the Arctic (2015) and has published extensively on Arctic, Nordic, and European culture, cinema, and literature.
Summary
This book offers a diverse and groundbreaking account of the intersections between modernities and environments in the circumpolar global North, foregrounding the Arctic as a critical space of modernity, where the past, present, and future of the planet’s environmental and political systems are projected and imagined. Investigating the Arctic region as a privileged site of modernity, this book articulates the globally significant, but often overlooked, junctures between environmentalism and sustainability, indigenous epistemologies and scientific rhetoric, and decolonization strategies and governmentality. With international expertise made easily accessible, readers can observe and understand the rise and conflicted status of Arctic modernities, from the nineteenth century polar explorer era to the present day of anthropogenic climate change.
Additional text
“The essays challenge a conventional view of the Arctic that often relies on ‘colonial, gendered, capitalist, and racialized power structures …,’ as well as one driven by geopolitics and ‘the deductive model of the natural sciences.’ Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; faculty and professionals.” (R. A. Delgado Jr., Choice, Vol. 55 (1), September, 2017)
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"The essays challenge a conventional view of the Arctic that often relies on 'colonial, gendered, capitalist, and racialized power structures ...,' as well as one driven by geopolitics and 'the deductive model of the natural sciences.' Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; faculty and professionals." (R. A. Delgado Jr., Choice, Vol. 55 (1), September, 2017)
